I Wish I Was Like You

Through the eyes of a dead woman, Shirley Jackson Award–finalist Miskowski (Muscadines) reveals a fraught and unhappy world; black humor underneath the grit keeps the reader enthralled. When 20-something Greta Garver landed in Seattle, she befriended a theater maven and bluffed her way into a job as a theater reviewer for an alternative newspaper. She is living in a small apartment in 1994 when she finds her own dead body and realizes she’s become a ghost. Greta’s restless spirit haunts the good (and not-so-good) folks on the seamy side of Seattle, coaxing them to end their misery in various ways. Greta’s too smart for her own good and often too lazy to care, and the literally cutthroat world of alternative news just might be her undoing. Greta is an acerbic delight, and revenge is sweet, but the real question is whether she’ll ever be able to let go of the living world and find a measure of peace. This biting, sly gem of a novel shouldn’t be missed. (July)